For at least the last two years, the Left has been imploring the Democratic Party and its loyal voters not to choose Joe Biden as their nominee. I even wrote an entire book about it. The argument against Biden is well known and easy to find, and I’m not going to bother repeating it here.

Unfortunately, Biden is now indisputably the Democratic nominee, and will be facing Donald Trump in the general election. As inadequate as Biden and the conservatives who are propping him up are to handle this moment in history, no one reading this wants to see a second Trump term. But despite what polling currently shows, it is far from assured Biden will deliver even that result, and he is entering the race in a weaker position than Clinton this time in 2016, after she had already weathered months of criticism and press scrutiny — the kind to which Biden has so far not been treated.

Already, some members of the liberal pundit-sphere are calling for a moratorium on criticism of Biden. Besides being a repugnant idea for any journalist, this is not sustainable: though liberal news outlets might view their top priority for the next seven months as getting Biden into the White House at all costs, there’s no guarantee mainstream news outlets will see their jobs this way, and they will almost certainly start applying serious scrutiny to Biden again now that Bernie Sanders is out of the race.